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Americans may be sharply divided on other issues, but they are united in their view of the 2010 Supreme Court ruling that unleashed a torrent of political spending: They hate it.

In a new Bloomberg Politics national poll, 78 percent of those responding said the Citizens United ruling should be overturned, compared with 17 percent who called it a good decision.

“Wow. Wow. I’m stunned,” said David Strauss, a constitutional law professor who teaches at the University of Chicago. “What it suggests is that Citizens United has become a symbol for what people perceive to be a much larger problem, which is the undue influence of wealth in politics.”

Read the questions and methodology here.

The 5-4 ruling said that corporations have a First Amendment right to spend unlimited sums in support of political causes. That decision, coupled with a lower court’s rejection of a ceiling on contributions to political groups, opened the way for the super-PACs that are expected to pump hundreds of millions of dollars into the 2016 presidential race.

Unhappiness with the 2010 decision cuts across demographic and partisan and ideological lines. Although the ruling was fashioned by the court’s conservative majority, Republicans oppose Citizens United 80 percent to 18 percent, according to the poll. Democrats oppose 83 percent to 13 percent, and independents, 71 percent to 22 percent. Among self-described liberals, conservatives, and moderates, 80 percent say the decision should be overturned.

“I would have assumed that by now there would have been a more partisan context to it,” said Trevor Potter, a Citizens United critic and former Federal Election Commission chairman who serves as president of the Campaign Legal Center in Washington. “This one is not seen in partisan context, just with overwhelming disapproval. The reason, I think, is that most people don’t think that corporations and unions have First Amendment rights.”

Democratic candidates are aiming to harness the hostility toward Citizens United in the 2016 presidential campaign. Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Martin O’Malley all say they will insist that their Supreme Court nominees oppose Citizens United. Harvard professor Lawrence Lessig is running a quixotic campaign based solely on his vow to reduce the influence of money in politics.

The broad opposition to Citizens United stands in contrast to the polarized views of the Supreme Court’s recent decision backing Obamacare tax subsidies. Democrats supported that ruling 79 percent to 15 percent in the poll, while Republicans opposed it 77-18. Overall, 49 percent said it was a good decision, and 44 percent called for it to be overturned.
Another recent Supreme Court decision—the June ruling legalizing gay marriage nationwide—fared better in the poll, with 54 percent supporting and 42 percent opposing. And by a margin of 67 percent to 29 percent, those surveyed said the court was right to rule that women have a constitutional right to abortion.

Forty-six percent said they had a favorable opinion of the Supreme Court, with 42 percent saying they had an unfavorable view. By a margin of 57 percent to 36 percent, those surveyed said state officials should be bound by Supreme Court decisions that affect the way they do their jobs. That question suggested only limited sympathies for officials like Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who briefly went to jail for blocking the issuance of same-sex marriage licenses, and who has been lionized by some Republican presidential candidates.

On Citizens United, the poll asked about the Supreme Court ruling that said “corporations and unions may spend unlimited amounts on political causes.” The question didn’t mention Citizens United by name or describe the free speech interest invoked by the majority. The wording may have exacerbated the skepticism toward the ruling, says Lawrence Baum, a specialist in judicial politics who teaches at Ohio State University in Columbus.
“It would be interesting to see what the breakdown of opinion would be if a question described the court as ruling that individuals and organizations have a First Amendment right to spend money on campaigns as they see fit,” Baum said. “There might be considerably more support for the decision.”

Still, the poll indicates deep suspicion of a campaign finance system seen as giving outsize influence to the wealthy. Asked whether the system should be reformed so that a rich person doesn’t have more influence than a person without money, 87 percent said yes and only 12 percent said no.

“People are very unhappy with what they’re seeing with money and politics,” Potter said.
The poll of 1,001 U.S. adults was conducted Sept. 18-21 by the Iowa-based Selzer & Co. and has a margin of error of plus/minus 3.1 percentage points.

Former Wyoming Senator, Alan Simpson is featured in The Daily Caller with a new piece explaining why GOP state leaders should support a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United.

Key excerpts are highlighted below:

On January 21, 2010, in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the U.S. Supreme Court unleashed a veritable flood of money into our political system by ruling that, contrary to longstanding precedent, unions and corporations may spend unlimited amounts of money to promote or defeat candidates.

The ruling also led to the rise of SuperPACs in our elections and unlimited spending from wealthy individuals. A recent assessment shows how substantial the impact of the ruling has been on our current presidential election, with fewer than 400 families being responsible for almost half the money raised so far in the 2016 presidential campaign.

In the wake of the Citizen United ruling more than five years ago, millions of Americans across the political spectrum have mobilized in support of a constitutional amendment that would overturn that ruling and restore republican democracy to the people. People across the nation, regardless of their political affiliation, are making clear that corporations or unions should not be able to spend internal funds to influence elections. The First Amendment was crafted for exercise by individual persons – and it was never imagined there would be such a concept as corporate or union “personhood.”

The ruling also led to the rise of SuperPACs in our elections and unlimited spending from wealthy individuals. A recent assessment shows how substantial the impact of the ruling has been on our current presidential election, with fewer than 400 families being responsible for almost half the money raised so far in the 2016 presidential campaign.

No one has a First Amendment right to drown out other people’s speech.

Susan H. Parker, who lives in Shaler, served for 10 years as a Republican member of Cheswick Borough Council in Pennsylvania. In October, she penned an op-ed to the Pittsburgh-Post Gazette on ‘Why We Need An Amendment to Overturn Citizens United’.

On the September 2014 Senate vote on the Democracy For All Amendment, Susan writes:

It gives me hope because the number of grass-roots activists pushing for an amendment has skyrocketed in the past four and a half years since the Supreme Court ruling in the Citizens United case that essentially said corporations and the wealthy could spend unlimited sums to influence our elections. Americans are fed up with the corrupt campaign finance system, and they are ready and willing to fight back.

And it gives me hope to see that this is not just a Democratic issue. Polls show that Americans overwhelmingly support a constitutional amendment, by a 2-1 margin, with strong support coming from Republicans, Democrats and independents alike.”

What has been the biggest change in presidential politics since you were the Republican nominee in 1996?
Money. Now they talk about raising $1 billion to run for president. It’s unreal. We need to do something to stop all this money in politics. I’ve always believed when people give big money, they — maybe silently — expect something in return.

In another exchange, we was asked, “Do you think you could have been the nominee if money had played such an important role back then? (1996)”. His response:

I don’t think so. And I might not be conservative enough to be the nominee today.

In his interview, Dole did not mention the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling, but his view on money in politics seemed clear.

In April at an event in New Hampshire, Senator Lindsey Graham was asked a question about what he would do to fight big money in politics. In his response, Graham pointed to the need for a constitutional amendment to address the Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United:

Well, Citizens United has gotta be fixed. Y’all agree with that? You’re gonna need a constitutional amendment to fix this problem. I was for McCain-Feingold, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that provisions in McCain-Feingold basically no longer apply.

You’re gonna get sick of watching TV in New Hampshire. So the next President of the United States needs to get a commission of really smart people and find a way to create a constitutional amendment to limit the role of super PACs because there’s gonna be like $100M spent on races in New Hampshire — which’ll be good for this TV station — ripping everybody apart. You don’t even know who the people are supplying the money, you don’t even know their agenda. Eventually we’re gonna destroy American politics with so much money in the political process cause they’re going to turn you off to wanting to vote.

Senator Graham previously spoke out against the big money takeover of our elections n March, Bloomberg’s David Weigel wrote about a comment Graham made to a voter — again, in New Hampshire — about his desire to see some “control” over money in politics so it won’t “destroy the political process.”

“It’s the wild, wild West,” Graham told voters in Barrington, N.H., this month, adding: “What I worry about is that we are turning campaigns over to about 100 people in this country, and they are going to be able to advocate their cause at the expense of your cause.”

We acknowledge that support for the amendment is key, however Senator Graham voted against the Democracy For All Amendment, which would overturn decisions like Citizens United and Bucky v. Valeo.

Americans across the political spectrum fundamentally reject unchecked spending in our elections, made possible by Supreme Court Decisions such as Citizens United v. FEC and Buckley v. Valeo. According to a June New York Times/CBS News Poll, there is deep support among Republican and Democrat voters alike for measures that would restrict the influence of Super PACs and for more disclosure of election spending.

In addition, the poll found that many voters reject the argument the ongoing Supreme Court jurisprudence on campaign finance that asserts political money is a form of speech protected by the First Amendment.

In a follow-up interview from the New York Times, Teri Holland, 67, a former database manger and self-identified Republican from New Mexico comments:

“I think it’s an obscene thing the Supreme Court did. The old-boy system is kind of dead, but now it’s the rich system. The rich decide what’s going to happen because the Supreme Court allows PACs to have civil rights.”

Do you agree with the viewpoints of Teri Holland and similar voters? Let us know in the comments.